Difficult but good day

Yesterday morning I left Alpine around 6 AM to go water and service feeders at the oasis. About fives miles from town I discovered I didn't have my cell phone, so went back and retrieved it. I wasn't in a huge hurry, since I had planned to spend the night at the oasis, and spread watering out over two days, leaving lots of time to enjoy migration. 

Along Snake Road the phone company had finally finished burying the new cable, and a small shower the day before had somewhat helped settle the dust bowl they had left. So I poked along, stopping frequently to rake and pick stray rocks off the road. Then I headed straight to the oasis to check feeders and see what interesting migrants were around. No big hurry.

Making my usual initial inspection, I soon discovered that something had overturned three chairs and broken a cast iron chair to pieces. One chair leg was off, one arm was off, and when I picked it up another leg fell off. The back was broken in two places.

Since it happened near the back water drip, I took the card out of the camera hoping to determine the culprit. When I got up to my quarters with the card, I discovered no internet service. That meant rushing through watering, in what was left of the day, and getting back to town. With a very late start (11 AM), it was going to be grueling. No brunch to be followed by a nap. (I can either digest food or work hard, but not both at the same time.)

All I could find on the card was a bunch of javelina. Best I can figure is one accidentally got a tusk caught in the chair and thrashed around, flinging the chair ten feet or so away. Or a possibility that a birder moved the chair over closer to the water drip for better photos and a javelina tangled in it there. Either way, doesn't matter. It can be welded, and in the future, I'll put the cast iron chairs in an area that javelina don't frequent. (Birders are welcome to move chairs around.)

The temperature quickly climbed to its high of 107,° which was made worse by humidity higher than I'm used to. And my foot, which had been almost better, I had thought, was hurting real bad. I had no choice but to painfully limp around all day. I must have re-injured it, but no idea how.

The good news is my inflamed lymph node is getting well, and my Hep C lab work shows I'm totally cured of that! I was confident I would be, since the cure rate is almost 100%, and I had done everything exactly as prescribed, but nice knowing for sure. It's official.

Not much time for birdwatching, although the place was very birdy. Here are a couple of pics from the day. Since my good camera is off to repair, I'm not happy with any of my photos. Documentary only.

Male Lark Bunting beginning winter plumage

Willow Flycatcher

Crissal Thrasher

I was too exhausted to blog when I finally got back to town, but this morning, I'm none the worse for the wear.

By the way, I set my blog so comments have to be approved by me. Don't let that stop you from commenting. I was just getting too much spam garbage. I remove it as soon as I see it, but hard to stay on top of.